12. XII. ENLIGHTENMENT BY MEANS OF THE WORD. Every man who is in the spiritual affection of truth, that is, who loves truth itself because it is truth, is enlightened by the Lord when he reads the Word; but not the man who reads it from mere natural affection of truth, which is called the desire of knowing. The latter does not see anything except what agrees with his love, or with the principles which he has either himself adopted, or derived from others by hearing or reading. In a few words therefore it shall be told whence and with what man there is enlightenment by means of the Word. That man has enlightenment who shuns evils because they are sins, and because they are against the Lord, and against His Divine laws. With this man and with no other, the spiritual mind is opened, and so far as it is opened, the light of heaven enters, from which light is all enlightenment in the Word. For man then has a will for good, and this will, when it is determined to that use, becomes in the understanding first the affection of truth, then the perception of truth, soon by means of rational light the thought of truth, thus decision and conclusion, which as it passes thence into the memory, also passes into the life, and so remains. This is the way of all enlightenment in the Word, and also the way of reformation and regeneration of man. But first the memory must needs have knowledges both of spiritual and natural things, for these are the stores into which the Lord operates by means of the light of heaven, and the fuller these are and freer from confirmed falsities, the more enlightened is the perception given and the clearer the conclusion. For the Divine operation does not fall into a man who is empty and void, as for example one who does not know that the Lord is pure love and pure mercy, good itself, and truth itself, and that love itself and good itself are such in their essence that they cannot do evil to anyone, neither be angry nor revengeful; or who does not know that the Word in the sense of the letter is written in many places from appearances. Such a man cannot be enlightened by the Word where it is said of Jehovah that He is wrathful and angry, and that to Him belong fire and fury, that His wrath burns, even to the lowest hell-as in David; that there is no evil in the city which Jehovah hath not done, as in Amos (3:6); that He would rejoice to do evil as He had rejoiced to do good (Deut. 28:63); that He leads into temptations, as in the Lord's prayer; and similarly in other places.